


Desiderium

by steelneena



Series: CR1 Oneshots and Short Series [10]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Now i've watched from the beginning, Sam's distraught faces and likely tears are to blame for this, Wish, You're warned, it's actually the second time, not actually present but alluded to, personal catharsis, so I just finished 114, so obviously i cried a lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:28:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25026982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steelneena/pseuds/steelneena
Summary: A beautiful dream, to wish one had wish.
Relationships: Scanlan Shorthalt & Vax'ildan
Series: CR1 Oneshots and Short Series [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1412188
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Desiderium

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry.
> 
> Written to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcEfx3i3cPs

There he is, Vax’ildan, glowing in the beautiful light of day. His eyes are sad, smile dripping the tears that spill over his cheeks, radiating resignation and love. But, Scanlan knows, there’s one last hope, one last spell, hidden in his pocket, and when he unleashes it, he’ll tell the tale a thousand times over and a thousand times again of how they battled a god, but more importantly, how they saved their friend.

No one will believe them.

Doomed.

The world, the prime material plane, each and every last one of them.

Doomed.

But none so doomed as Vax’ildan.

Vax’ildan, Angel of Death and Fate.

Vax’ildan, The Raven Queen’s Champion and Prince.

Vax’ildan, the brother.

The friend.

Vax.

Death already finds its home in his bones, their form a holy gift from his patron goddess, little more than the shadows of ash and dust. Death builds the house of his otherworldly spirit and Death is the proprietor over his charter. Mortality holds no province over the facsimile of flesh and blood, but there are forces beyond mortality, beyond imagination, that reside in the back pocket of a tiny little gnome. Frustrated and scared and desperate.

And sad.

And elated.

They’ve defeated a god. Locked him away for a lifetime and eternity. But the last thrum of a stolen heartbeat is fast in coming.

Only, the Raven Queen isn’t Ioun. She doesn’t know all.

“I wish…”

_I wish that it had not come to this. I wish that things were different. I wish for happiness, the world over, and prosperity and goodness. I wish for life. I wish for life._

“I wish that Vax’ildan was no longer an undead revenant, but a mortal instead, as he was before the spell, but here and now, that he might live out a natural life of peace and happiness before his Mistress claims him again.”

Vax shudders and for a moment, Scanlan thinks it’s failed. He knows that such things can go wrong, that the stress of such magic could seriously inhibit it’s caster. But Scanlan is okay with that. Anything is better than the inevitable.

Anything is better than yielding to the Grand Bitch of Fate.

Magic leeches from him and Vax’s graying flesh sears a healthy flush, and his cheeks grow pink with the restored flow of blood, and, for the first time in days, Vax takes a real breath, and actually _breathes_ the air around him.

A cold chill travels down Scanlan’s spine. Fate doesn’t just lay down on her back for anyone, and Death…well, she may always be _inevitable_ , but she doesn’t have to be _now._

Vax lives.

Vax lives.

A beautiful dream, to wish one had wish.

And Scanlan weeps, as that dream fades away, and with it, the last great surge of power within him, expended to anchor Vecna to the material plane.

The world will be saved, and a god defeated, if Vox Machina has anything to say about it.

But Death still reigns supreme.


End file.
